Washington is no stranger to the Hamptons. She recently costarred with Craig Robinson in Peeples, a comedy set in Sag Harbor, where her real life family had a summer home when she was a kid.

In her cover story, “The Most Intriguing Star, the Most Intriguing Show,” by David Kamp, Washington discusses her role as Washington fixer Olivia Pope in Scandal, as well as her evolving, and maturing, style. Of Scandal, she tells Kamp, “one of the most profound things for me about the show is the number of white women of all ages who come up to me and say, ‘I want to be Olivia Pope.”

Read the entire story in the August issue of Vanity Fair, on news stands July 9.